Penguin Black Spine

The range of topics and the careful consideration given to them by Montaigne is unsurpassed; he studies humanity through poetry, love and ectasy - but also through cannibalism and war-horses...

Written during the winter of 1857-8, the Grundrisse was considered by Marx to be the first scientific elaboration of communist theory. A collection of seven notebooks on capital and money,...

One of the greatest novels of Chinese literature The Story of the Stone (c.1760) is one of the greatest novels of Chinese literature. The first part of the story, The...

Hume's masterpiece on human nature, attacking traditional religious thought One of the most significant works of Western philosophy, Hume's Treatise was published in 1739-40, before he was thirty years old....

A new and original anthology that introduces the use of rhetoric in the classical world, from Aristotle to Cicero and beyond Classical rhetoric is one of the earliest versions of...

Geoffrey of Monmouth's history - or legend - of the earliest kings of Britain Completed in 1136, The History of the Kings of Britain traces the story of the realm...

This foundational work on architecture is brought to Penguin Classics for the first time in a new illustrated edition In De architectura (c.40 BC), Vitruvius discusses in ten encyclopedic chapters...

The adventures of the well-loved clerical sleuth, collected in a single volume and introduced by Michael D. Hurley Shabby and lumbering, with a face like a Norfolk dumpling, Father Brown...

Vivid biographies of famous characters from the Ancient Greek world, in a revised edition of Ian Scott-Kilvert's seminal translation The Parallel Lives of Plutarch are cornerstones of Western literature, and...

The essential writings of the 20th century's most influential economist, collected in one volume John Maynard Keynes was the most influential economist, and one of the most influential thinkers, of...

Penguin Classics relaunch A new selection of Vincent Van Gough's letters, based on an entirely new translation, revealing his religious struggles, his fascination with the French Revolution, his search for...

First Penguin volume Of best Japanese haiku Vivid translations Now a global poetry, the haiku was originally a Japanese verse form that flourished from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. Although...

A collection of Kafka's greatest stories, including his famous tale of alienation, now in Penguin Black Classics This collection of new translations brings together the small proportion of Kafka's works...

A unique and enchanting collection of Russian folk tales collected over the last two centuries In these tales, young women go on long and difficult quests, wicked stepmothers turn children...

This revised edition has been completely re-set with an updated index and a new preface Isaiah Berlin witnessed the excesses of the Russian Revolution as a child, and in becoming...

New to Black Classics Wilfred Thesiger was born in Addis Ababa in 1910 and educated at Eton and Oxford. Though British, he was repulsed by the softness and rigidity of...

New edition of this classic novel, edited by Philip Horne and Ruth Yeazell This story of the alliance between Italian aristocracy and American millionaires is "a work unique among all...

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery A noble but impoverished Venetian asks a friend, Antonio, for a loan to...

New to Classics The Book of Chuang Tzu draws together the stories, tales, jokes and anecdotes that have gathered around the figure of Chuang Tzu. One of the great founders...

A major new translation of Ireland's great epic of heroism, magic, bloodshed and betrayal - now in paperback The Tain Bo Cualinge, centrepiece of the eighth-century Ulster cycle of heroic...

A unique collection bringing together acknowledged masterpieces from classic authors such as Chekhov and Gogol and a rich selection from less familiar writers. From the reign of the Tsars in...

A collection of some of Dostoyevsky's finest short stories With their penetrating psychological insight and their emphasis on human dignity, respect and forgiveness, Dostoyevsky's early short stories contain the seeds...

Penguin Classics relaunch. Visiting an idyllic German village, Werther, a sensitive young man, falls in love with sweet-natured Lotte. Though he realizes that Lotte is to marry Albert, he is...

Translated with an introduction by Alstair Hannay Writing under the pseudonym of Johannes de silentio, Kierkegaard uses the form of a dialectical lyric to present his conception of faith. Abraham...

A fascinating account of the time of the Vikings and the feuds of the Orkney Isles Written around AD 1200 by an unnamed Icelandic author, the Orkneyinga Saga is an...

Dreamlike Welsh tales from the thirteenth century Drawing on myth, folklore and history, the stories of the Mabinogion passed from generations of storytellers before they were written down in the...

With new introduction by Cynthia Wall, chronology further reading, glossary, and explanatory notes. In 1665 the plague swept through London, claiming over 97,000 lives. Daniel Defoe was just five at...

Appearing in the new Classics livery in for the the BBC adaptation of Cranford in 2004 Set in English society before the 1832 Reform Bill, Wives and Daughters centres on...

One of the most significant examples of English writing on Utopia Poet, pattern-designer, environmentalist and maker of fine books, William Morris (1834-96) was also a committed socialist and visionary writer,...

A richly enthralling and evocative account of King Arthur Volume two of Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory's powerful and elegaic version of the Arthurian legend, recounts the adventures of...

new to Modern Classics Katharine Hilbery is beautiful and privileged but uncertain of her future. She must choose between becoming engaged to the oddly prosaic poet William, and her dangerous...

One of the most startling literary debuts of all time, now in Penguin Black Classics As the First World War reaches its final year, an illicit love affair is beginning...

Penguin Classics Relaunch When Arthur Clennam returns to England after many years abroad, he takes a kindly interest in Amy Dorrit, his mother's seamstress, and in the affairs of Amy's...

Penguin Classics relaunch. With Robinson Crusoe, Defoe wrote what is regarded as the first English novel, and created one of the most popular and enduring myths in literature. Written in...

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery A storm rages. Prospero and his daughter watch from their desert island as...

with an introduction by Lorna Sage Innovative, startlingly perceptive and aglow with colour, these fifteen stories were written towards the end of Katherine Mansfield's tragically short life. Many are set...

One of the greatest classics of Chinese literature One of China's Four Great Classical Novels, Monkey King was written anonymously during the Ming dynasty and is most commonly attributed to...

A work of tremendous influence that has inspired writers from his ancient Greek contemporaries to modernist writers such as T.S. Eliot, Homer's epic poem The Iliad is translated by Robert...

A masterfully rendered volume of Chekhov's stories from famed translators Pevear and Volokhonsky Chekhov's genius left an indelible impact on every literary form in which he wrote, but none more...

A new translation by Helen Constantine of de Laclos's great novel of moral and emotional depravity. Published in 1782, just years before the French Revolution, Les Liaisons Dangereuses is a...

Penguin Classics relaunch This is the second of a new two-volume edition of the works of Descartes in Penguin Classics. This volume is designed for students who approach Descartes from...

Penguin Classics relaunch The Greek statesman Polybius (c.200-118 BC) wrote his account of the relentless growth of the Roman Empire in order to help his fellow countrymen understand how their...

One of the best-known pieces of detective fiction and probably the most popular of all Holmes stories The terrible spectacle of the beast, the fog of the moor, the discovery...

Penguin Classics relaunch The Moonstone, a priceless yellow diamond, is looted from an Indian temple and maliciously bequeathed to Rachel Verinder. On her eighteenth birthday, her friend and suitor Franklin...

New to Classics, with a new introduction by one of the best known Egyptologists of our time The Book of the Dead is a unique collection of funerary texts from...

A masterpiece of Russian prose, Lermontov's only novel was influential for many later nineteenth-century authors, including Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Chekhov. A brilliant new translation of a perennial favorite of Russian...

Published to co-incide with the pbk of Claire Tomalin's Whitbread Prize-winning biography The 1660s represent a turning point in English history, and for the main events - the Restoration, the...

Vivid, powerful and absorbing, this is a first-person account of one of the most startling military episodes in history- the overthrow of Montezuma's doomed Aztec Empire by the ruthless Hernan...